Posh resort does its part to protect water

RIDGEDALE, Mo. -- At a posh resort on Table Rock Lake, the staff that does 5,000 pounds of laundry a day is helping to keep the lake as clean as the sheets.

Big Cedar has led the way among a slowly growing number of businesses adopting environmentally friendly habits.

The state-of-the-art laundry system filters and recycles its final rinse water back into the room-sized washing "tunnel," saving 10,000 gallons of water a day. That water would otherwise go directly through the resort's wastewater treatment plant into the lake.

The resort also encourages guests to recycle everything from paper cups to cans and even composts kitchen waste with manure from its riding stable.

In Branson, city environmental specialist Debbie Redford kicked off the Environmental Excellence Challenge in 1997. Dozens of hotels, restaurants and other businesses have signed up, choosing from a list of sound practices, and display their participation plaque for customers to see. Big Cedar was a charter member of the program, Redford said.

'It was a marketing tool'

The practices encouraged by the challenge are good for the environment but have other benefits for business owners, Redford said.

"The more I read about it, especially with the baby boomers and the new kind of tourists, and what I read from the Green Hotel Association, the more I came to realize that it was a marketing tool as well as being the right thing to do," Redford said. "And when you put the nuts and bolts to it moneywise, you really do end up saving."

Branson businesses choose from a list of water and solid-waste conservation options including double-sided copying, elimination of paper or plastic glasses, bulk dispensers for condiments, donating used towels and blankets and serving drinking water only on demand.

Ann McDowell, who with her husband Bob owns Ride The Ducks, has been with the program since it began. They recycle batteries, oil and other byproducts of their vehicles, McDowell said.

She also participates in conservation programs when she travels and stays in hotels that give guests the option to have sheets and towels changed less than daily.

"I don't wash my sheets and towels every day at home, and I don't expect it to be done in a hotel," McDowell said.

Some of the association's 200 member hotels say they have 100 percent participation in the sheet and towel programs, Griffin said.

Tours of the laundry

Traditionally, hotels haven't wanted guests to know about behind-the-scenes operations.

At Big Cedar, executive housekeeper Margo Aldridge has proudly shown guests around the laundry when they've wandered off the hiking trail behind the facility. Aldridge said she estimates that a third of the guests ask to reuse their sheets and towels. A much larger percentage use the recycling bags that are in every room's wastebaskets for cans, glass and paper products.

As the resort expanded in the mid-1990s, an updated laundry system became a priority, said John Reid, director of facilities management. It wasn't cheap. The washing tunnel, for example, was $225,000, the towel folder $28,000.